


Raktajino

by hes5thlazarus



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gallitep, Gen, Past Drug Addiction, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Terok Nor (Star Trek), season one, the resistance, when everyone hated each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:27:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23742268
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hes5thlazarus/pseuds/hes5thlazarus
Summary: Kira Nerys stews over the history of Terok Nor and the Occupation over a cup of raktajino, soon after she meets Marritza, and Garak just does not know when to leave a bleeding wound alone.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Raktajino

Fear, rage, and craving pooled clammy at every crevice of her body, and Nerys stayed in motion to keep the cold sweat off. She joined Odo on his rounds of the Promenade, watching him torment Quark. They patrolled the Upper Pylons together, her phaser ready. She remembered who had built these halls, for what purpose, and how they died. Every electric flicker seemed to be a Bajoran ghost, slumped in a crevice, hung from an air duct, painted across the walls. Nerys had initially argued against keeping the station; she thought the Terok Nor resistance cell should have bombed it, just like the Shakaar had done to Gallitep. The provisional government had deemed it salvageable, and besides, they did not have the capacity at this point to allocate supplies for a space station during this reconstruction. The Bajorans had to make due with what they got--ruins of a lost civilization, a Cardassian space station built by their own slave labor, a few mostly-uninhabited moons, and the Federation. It didn’t seem enough.

They finished their patrol of Upper Pylons and took the turbolift back to the Promenade in silence. Nerys walked Odo to his office. As his doors opened, he turned to her. “Major, I hope you don’t think this forward of me--but please do not patrol the Lower Pylons alone. It isn’t safe. Not without an engineering and security detail. There are still some anti-terrorist measures left from the Occupation--I know we’ve disabled some of them, but--”

“It’s fine,” Nerys interrupted. “I won’t go chasing old ghosts by myself. I know better to go into the mining shafts alone, Odo. Even during the worst of the Occupation, we worked in pairs. I won’t do anything without you, and a few of those Starfleet engineers. Let them take the front lines for once.”

Odo nodded, satisfied. He reached a hand out, almost to her shoulder, but he saw how she tensed and dropped it. Awkwardly, he grunted, “We’ve lost enough good men to the  _ vagaries _ of Terok Nor. We don’t need to lose Deep Space Nine’s First Officer and Bajoran Liaison, too. Good night, Major.” He turned to enter his office.

“Good night, Constable.”

He paused. “And, Major?”

“What?”

“Do try to get some sleep. This station needs you at full capacity.”

Nerys smiled. “Of course. Thank you, Odo.” Take care of yourself, Nerys. Don’t let nightmares of the Occupation overtake you. She walked away.

The Promenade was quiet tonight. Even Quark’s bar was slow, this late into the night, so very early into the morning. Nerys flashed to her first time there, harassed by Odo, stepping through a crew of Bajoran slaves stoned on the cheap chemicals the Cardassian overseers sold to keep them complacent, wondering if she had enough money to buy some smoke at the Ferengi’s bar. She closed her eyes as she passed and asked herself what she smelled: the acrid nothingness of Federation quality cleaners, not the stench of Cardassian sin. She asked herself what she heard: Morn chattering to a bored Quark about an old girlfriend who had joined up with some new border militia called the Maquis. She opened her eyes, and saw Deep Space Nine, a Federation-occupied space station in Bajoran Space. This was not Terok Nor anymore.

She didn’t like it when Cardassians were on the station. That pathetic collaborator, Marritza from Gallitep, had wound her as tight as a hara cat. She hadn’t wanted to think about Gallitep, the dead, the torment of it.

“Anything I can do for you, Major?” Quark interrupted. Nerys started, phaser already in her hand and chair kicked away. Quark threw his hands up, eyes wide. “Easy, easy--lost in reverie?”

Nerys snarled at him as she holstered her phaser. Picking up the chair, she said, “You could get lost--and bring me a raktajino, while you’re at it.’

“Nothing else in it?” Quark said. “Some smoke, perhaps? A shot of boton rye?”

“Smoke?” she purred, eyes narrowed. “Who do you think I am, Quark, some hopped-up Bajoran terrorist from the Dakhur Province? I’ll have you know, I am the liaison of the provisional government of the Bajoran system to the United Federation of Planets, our august saviors.  _ And _ first officer of the Federation space station, Deep Space Nine. Normal space to the Bajorans, but this is Federation territory we’re talking about.”

Quark stared at her. “So I take it that’s a no, then,” he deadpanned. Morn stifled a giggle. Nerys grinned a bit dangerously at him. She hadn’t meant to snap all that at him.

“A raktajino with a shot of java, semi-sweet,” she clarified, “and fast. For Bajor’s liaison to Deep Space Nine.”

Quark shrugged and muttered something nasty and untranslatable as he moved behind the bar. Nerys didn’t need to speak Ferengi. She spoke seven Bajoran dialects and two Cardassian languages, and could get by in Vulcan without a universal translator. She grabbed her raktajino, just a little too hot, just like she liked it, and stalked to her table. For sentiment’s sake, she had staked out where she had met Odo for the first time, all those long years ago, when her hair was long, just before Elemspur, long after Gallitep. Nerys sipped her coffee, and wished fervently Quark had given her smoke anyway.

Klingon coffee was better by itself than the tincture of java the Musilla province produced. Bajor could not compete with raktajino outside of its traditional market. However, a shot of java swirled into a mug of fresh raktajino smoothed out the bitter edges and gave it an almost melon-cool aftertaste, like some Earth teas did. It was not as good as the cool, acrid clarity of a good dose of smoke, but it would get her through the next three hours, to her next shift in Ops. This was better than smoke, she reminded herself. Smoke might filter the mind and keep the body wired--perfect for a terrorist doing rounds in Dahkur--but for a diplomat and a bureaucrat and a professional soldier, it dulled color and taste and fucked with her circulation. She was not going to die young anymore, she had made it to maybe thirty years, no one had really kept track of star dates under the Occupation. She was older than her own mother now; why ruin her health with smoke? Nerys liked to see the world in color.

At Gallitep, even as the smoke cleared, she had seen everything tinged sepia with the dust of the mines. The piles of sticks that were the starving Bajoran slaves, the fragments of people left in the infirmary, even the blue-toned sponeheads were blurry and rose-colored. Even during the massacre of the Mine 3-Delta, the screaming and the raping seemed filtered through cotton. She saw a Bajoran woman with her baby half out of her belly and a stick stuck up her cunt, and even the flash of her blood, everywhere, soaking the dust, came out pink and amber. Nerys blinked. Latha had found her youngest brother’s ear, earring still attached, in the Cardassian officers’ barracks. He had always been pretty like their mother, too delicate for the mines. Nerys’ hands spasmed over her mug. Some things didn’t bear thinking about; the smoke and the dust had given his ear a healthy flesh-tone, they had never found the rest of his body--

“Is this seat taken?”

Nerys started, slapped her phaser, and gulped. It was the Emissary, it was Sisko, the Federation commander of Terok Nor, Deep Space Nine. Rapidly she blinked, resetting herself in time. “Oh, no, uh,” she pointed, “go right ahead, I was about to leave--what time is it?” She had been away with the Prophets. Marritza had gotten to her, more than a raktajino could fix. She downed the rest of it quickly.

“It’s 0400 hours, Major,” Sisko said gently. He slid across from her, his own raktajino (with jacarine peel) in hand. “We’re expected in Ops at 0600. Did you get any sleep?”

Nerys shrugged, uncomfortable. “After yesterday’s incident with Marritza, I thought it best that the Constable and I patrol the Upper Pylons, to check for any more Cardassian sabotage.” Sisko looked surprised. Nerys just wanted more raktajino.

As if on psychic demand, Quark came over. “Can I get you two anything?” His beady eyes jumped from one to the other. Nerys lifted her mug at him and gestured for two java shots. He shrugged at her, and silently took it away. Sisko looked at her questioningly. Nerys waited for her coffee.

“I take it with java. Just java,” she said, “though we used to cut it with smoke during the Resistance. But I don’t do that anymore.”

“Smoke?”

“A mild amphetamine. Easy to concoct, and the withdrawal’s not bad. And the side effects of an addiction aren’t too difficult to handle, if you’re a wanted criminal not expecting to make it to thirty.” She flashed him a smile. “And easier to get to during the Occupation than Klingon coffee. Boiled java, cut with smoke--that was a Resistance breakfast, I suppose.”

Sisko regarded her with sympathy. Nerys, ashamed, looked down at her raktajino. Sisko said, “But now we’re not under the Occupation. And there’s plenty of raktajino to go around, on Deep Space Nine. This isn’t Terok Nor anymore.”

Kira snorted. “Tell Gul Dukat that. The Cardassians still think they own this station, no matter how much we rehab the pylons and incentivize Bajoran trade.” She looked away, back to the bar, where a few Andorian traders were grabbing a meal before the passenger ship, due at 0530 hours. The Bajorans on Terok Nor could rarely afford to eat at Quark’s, not unless they were offering the Cardassians some sort of entertainment. Quark had always liked to play the benevolent pimp. He had played that to her favor, all those years ago. “You know that out of the few survivors from the Terok Nor resistance cell, none of them wanted to stay? They said they couldn’t see any way this station could ever be made to feel Bajoran, that there wasn’t any way even the Prophets could cleanse the blood that had been drained to wire these conduits, let alone shut down the mine shafts. Odo had to recruit the militia mostly from Ashalla--we wanted people used to fighting in highly populated, high tech corridors.”

Sisko said carefully, “Kai Opaka said, before we left, that it was now time for Bajor to--heal, to let go of the ghosts of the past. To lay Terok Nor to rest.”

Nerys snorted. “Terok Nor won’t let me rest. Odo thinks we’ve found most of the Cardassian traps left over from the capture of Terok Nor, but clearing the Upper Pylons wiped out the station’s entire resistance cell, so it doesn’t hurt to be too careful. Some of them might be--must be--time-delayed.” Stiffly, she took a sip of her coffee. Now it was just lukewarm. The java came out more strongly. She waited for the aftertaste to cool her dry throat.

“Surely you don’t think Marritza was a Cardassian plot?”

Nerys sighed, stretched. “No, no, I don’t, but he had me thinking about the traps they laid for us at Gallitep, and then I got worried we missed some on Terok Nor. At Deep Space Nine. You know, speaking of Marritza--ou know his family refused to claim him? They said he was a traitor to Bajoran sentimentality. And Cardassians are so private about their dead. Odo thinks they’re too afraid to bury him, the Obsidian Order has been looking for excuses to round up our informants and they think Marritza actually  _ helped _ \--you know there wasn’t a single turncoat at Gallitep?” She stared at Sisko. “We had Cardassian help breaking out of Elemspur, we had Cardassians working on Terok Nor, under Dukat’s very nose, not even Odo noticed all my contacts, but at Gallitep? No one had the courage. No one thought it was  _ wrong _ enough,  _ disgusting  _ enough, to risk their own lizard-hides. They were turning Bajorans into  _ soap _ , and mixing their bones into concrete! And for the women, what they did to the ones who couldn’t stop themselves from getting pregnant--” She swallowed, hard. “And there’s only one filing clerk who heard what was going on and couldn’t ever get the sounds of it out of his head. And he didn’t even try to make contact.” Sisko was watching her, concern in his eyes. She tried to shake it off, he was the Emissary of the Prophets, how could she burden him with this? Embarrassed, she flexed her hands, trying to rub the circulation back into them. She hadn’t had smoke in almost a year now, but the numbness still lingered. He was not her vedek, he was her commanding officer. A memory from Mullibok’s farm slashed her, weeping because now there were no clear sides after the Liberation, Sisko’s disgusted face against her suppressed scream, she had burned Mullibok’s house like the Cardassians had torched her father’s garden. Furiously Nerys stared into her raktajino. Kai Opaka told her it was time for Bajor to heal. Latha once told her it was impossible to heal in the place that hurt you in the first place. Everywhere in the Bajoran star system, there was some old hurt.

Sisko said slowly, “I got my spurs during the Tzenkethi border wars.” Absently he stroked the pips in his collar. “When they had occupied the Federation colony Krondstadt-2. I remember walking down the bombed-out streets of Caspian City, checking for life signs.” Sisko sighed, closed his eyes, sipped his raktajino, and winced at the taste. “The Tzenkethi believe that their gods are sustained by the blood of their enemies, not unlike the Klingons.  _ Unlike _ the Klingons, however, prisoners of war still count as enemy forces. And they sacrificed a piece of every Federation citizen before we drove them off.”

The night shift was starting to lumber into the bar, and the tables were filling quickly with breakfast orders. Nerys scanned it quickly--the Starfleet engineering team, flustering Rom, some of Odo’s deputies, some of her militiamen, and that damn Cardassian tailor, the exiled spy, Garak. He caught her eye and smiled ingratiatingly. Nerys scowled and drank her raktajino. She hated the sight of Cardassians on the station. What were the sacrifices of the Terok Nor resistance cell for, if not to drive them all off? Gul Dukat had always liked to make an example of them. She knew she shouldn’t be so sharp when she saw a Cardassian, Marritza tried, but the Cardassians always considered every Bajoran guilty, every Bajoran was always a terrorist, always proven guilty. She turned away from him and grimaced at Sisko. He followed her gaze and sighed.

Nerys considered her cup, remembered the muted silver of her brother’s earring. He had been maybe eight years old. Kai Opaka said that her  _ pagh _ was demanding her to heal, that they were no longer at war. Reparations for Bajor, reconciliation for Cardassia--that is what Marrizta wished, and she wished hard that it was him weaving through the tables instead Garak. She looked at Sisko. “We found a lot of pieces left behind at Gallitep, alright. Did you know, I had a brother at Gallitep, and--”

Garak’s shadow loomed over her table. She looked up. “Funny, Major,” Garak smiled, “so did I. Is this seat taken?” He made to sit, Nerys whirled around, ready to launch her mug right into his face, but Sisko grabbed his arm.

“Garak, you don’t have a brother,” the Emissary said. “Do you. And we were just about to leave.”

Garak chuckled. “Oh, but Commander, all Cardassians are brothers. We take fraternity very seriously on Cardassia, I’ll have you know.” Nerys looked at Sisko in disbelief. He motioned for her to stay. “Of course,” Garak’s eyes widened as he prattled on, “the family is the cornerstone of Cardassian society--for which we waged the  _ liberation _ of Bajor--”

“I’m not going to listen to this,” Nerys pushed away from the table and slammed her raktajino down.

“--but,” Garak continued serenely, “when we consider the pieces we left behind, strip-mining of the Rakantha province aside, I cannot fathom that Gallitep did much for the average Cardassian family. Perhaps the High Court of Cardassia would disagree with me.” He waggled a finger. “But of course, this is not Cardassia. This is no longer Terok Nor.”

“No,” Sisko said sharply. “It’s not. We’re all just having a raktajino on star base Deep Space Nine.” Garak widened his eyes again and nodded. Why the fuck did he always do that, Nerys wondered. She contemplated sticking her thumbs into them. Cardassians didn’t blink much, it always creeped her out. 

“No,” he echoed. “We have indeed come to the end of the Cardassian occupation.” He smiled inanely at her, then at Sisko. “I hope I didn’t come in at an awkward time? Sharing family stories?”

Sisko sighed. “We were... _ just _ wrapping up.” He raised an eyebrow at Nerys. Finishing his coffee, he got up. “I’ll see you in Ops. 0600 hours. Goodbye, Mr. Garak” 

“Good day, Commander. And Major Kira,” Garak grimaced at them again, his closest approximation to a smile. “Have a  _ lovely _ morning.

“Uh, right,” Nerys said. She didn’t have it in her to fake it back at him. She caught Sisko smiling at her, amused, as she hurried off, raktajino turning melon-cool down her throat. That Cardassian seemed constantly drugged out; she was glad she had kicked the habit when she was given this assignment. Nerys bumped into Odo patrolling as she loped through the Promenade; he caught her before she fell, and she laughed for a second as the Bajoran shops opened up and the bustle of a new day in Deep Space Nine began.

“Anything the matter, Major?” he asked her.

“Oh, no,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Just giddy from lack of sleep.” She smiled at him, as the chimes from the temple down the way greeted the Bajoran dawn. She started to walk towards the turbolift. Odo followed her. “And too many raktajinos.” They waded through the morning crowd. In front of the lift, Nerys stopped suddenly. “Odo--does it ever strike you as funny, what Terok Nor’s become? How we blinked and suddenly this is no longer one of the worst labor camps in the Bajoran sector, and instead the church at the mouth of the Celestial Temple? A sacred site, where the ghosts of the Occupation are laid to rest and the Emissary walks among us?”

Odo set his shoulders and smiled thinly. “I never had your talent for poetry.”

Nerys laughed again. “Don’t worry, it’s a one time deal. I’m normally a disgrace to my d’jarra.” She rubbed her eyes again, and then realized she had never removed her mascara and eyeliner. Cautiously, she looked up at Odo, who had such a gentle expression on his face. She always appreciated his empathic side. “I’m glad I get to work with you,” she said impulsively. “That it’s not just me, from Terok Nor.”

Odo looked at her for a long time. One of the interesting things about making a shapeshifter uncomfortable, Nerys realized, was that she could watch him quite literally shift into a stony silence. “So am I, Major,” he said stiffly. “Now--if you will excuse me, I have my rounds to do. Please try to get some rest before you head to Ops, Kira. You’re getting sentimental with lack of sleep. You don’t want to slip up in front of the Federation.”

Nerys laughed. “Was that a joke?” she called to his retreating back. Shaking her head, she took the turbolift back to her quarters, and went to greet the day the Prophets had set to her.


End file.
